Book Review: Looking for the rainbow

Whatever Ruskin Bond writes always gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling. This memoir, Looking for the rainbow: my years with Daddy, isn’t different either. It is an account of one and half years Ruskin spent as a boy with his Daddy before he lost him. 

Bond remembers fondly his time with his father, an Englishman who worked with ciphers for RAF. His father spent all his spare time taking young Bond to movies, reading books, making breakfast and sorting through their rare stamp collection. Bond tells this story as if he was with his father only yesterday even though it was the time of second war war. The story has a sweet old world charm: a world without ACs where bhishtis sprayed water from their goatskin bags on the khus-khus matting on the doors and windows.It was also a strange time for Bond as he was a lot on his own and had to take care of himself as a young boy when his father was recovering in hospital. He made friends with kids from streets, one of whom, Raju, who told as wondrous as his books.

The second part of the book describes life in boarding school, the teachers, their quirks and the eccentric couple who run the school. There are reminisces about boyhood friends, happy moments and small joys of childhood.

The book is as much about loss as it is about love and yet the book is warm in its tone. It is a book with fantastic design and has beautiful illustrations by Mihir Joglekar. The animal and insect illustrations were particularly beautiful. It is good edition to keep on your bookshelf and pick it up to read on that cold afternoon when you are longing to remember little joys of your childhood.